


Resurrection

by Cancion_de_Rio



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aziraphale's Flaming Sword (Good Omens), Cake, Cliffhangers, Multi, Other, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cancion_de_Rio/pseuds/Cancion_de_Rio
Summary: Crowley's plan for a quiet and drunken evening is ruined by an unexpected guest who needs his help. He reluctantly agrees out of an unexplained guilt. He makes and loses a new friend while trying to provide the help he agreed to. Aziraphale tries to cheer him up with cake and miracles. Anathema makes an appearance with some ominous information. Crowley and his partner in crime take Aziraphale's flaming sword into a heated battle.
Kudos: 6





	Resurrection

Crowley opened the door to his apartment and before he removed his finger from the bolt (as he certainly didn’t require a key), he stopped and sniffed the air. He could smell _it_. He smelled _it_ all over the silver Pagani Huayra with turquoise trim that was not only parked illegally but in _his_ spot as well. Not that he was concerned about breaking more traffic laws to double-park right next to it, just affronted. Already annoyed with _it_ , he was further angered by the additional inconvenience of _it_ being in his house. He had already begun sneering as soon as he’d taken a whiff of the fancy Italian car, but now he curled his lips into a snarl, baring his shiny white teeth, and slammed the door, flashing his yellow reptilian eyes across the room.

_It_ was the smell of evil. Crowley knew that scent well, despite that this particular scent was definitely not the sort of evil that arose from the bowels of Hell, nor was it the scent that lingered on the foulest of humans. This was something else; vaguely familiar but foreign to him at the same time. Scanning the front room and the adjoining green room, he couldn’t see anything out of place or new, but he could smell it. As he entered the room filled with all his plants, there was no doubt that _it_ was in there somewhere. He sniffed for _it_ again and narrowed his eyes on his tallest plant with the largest leaves: _it_ was in there.

The two slim lengths of his grey scarf dangled as he bent down and lifted a wide green leaf. Two reptilian eyes in a deep and hypnotic turquoise peered back at him. As his sight adjusted, he realized the eyes were attached to a shiny, slender, scaly black body coiled around the center stem of his beloved plant, glints of that same turquoise shimmering as it shifted its position.

“ _You_ ,” Crowley stated as he sneered at the snake in his houseplant.

_It_ stuck its tongue out at him as it raised its head from beneath the leaf, making Crowley stand up straight. As more of its body unfurled from the plant, a leg stretched out toward the floor and once the foot was firmly on the ground, the second leg followed. The rest of it morphed into a shape not wholly unlike Crowley: tall, slender, and elegant. Unlike Crowley’s pasty human form, _she_ was as dark as the night sky. Her shimmering hair seemed to rattle and hiss just before it fell into long dreadlocks down her back. Her silver jumpsuit looked like liquid draped over her curves with a collar and cuffs made of metallic scales jutting out in varying angles. The points on her matching boots were as sharp as a pair of fangs. Crowley wasn’t even impressed and continued to sneer as he watched and waited almost impatiently for her to finish shifting into her human shape. She stuck one hip out and placed her hands on them, smiling back at him as if she were quite pleased with herself.

“This is not a good time,” Crowley said, wishing she weren’t there. He was planning an evening alone with a tall bottle of ancient alcohol or three.

“Why? Are you busy?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m extremely busy.”

“Doing what?”

He narrowed his yellow eyes at her. “Being evil, obviously.”

“Right,” she said in an English accent slightly different from his. “But how, specifically?”

“Doing evil you can’t even imagine,” he snapped.

“I imagine you don’t even know how to conjure up any real evil,” she laughed, her eyes glittering at him. “Weren’t you just nominated for a new round of accolades for the ongoing inability of Twitter users to edit their tweets once tweeted? What horrific evil will you think of next?”

Crowley’s sneer expanded as he covered his eyes with a pair of rounded sunglasses. The global frustration and embarrassment of grammatically incorrect viral tweets was so palpable he could practically inhale it through the screen on his laptop. Not only did he gain the personal satisfaction of seeing the results of his work on a daily basis, his overlords had been impressed with his ingenuity, especially since he’d been so clever at it that the social media giant still hadn’t changed its policy on editing despite an onslaught of complaints. She made it sound like he hadn’t done anything at all. He didn’t say anything to her and practically sashayed past her toward his kitchen; he really needed that alcohol right now. She snickered and followed him with a gait almost identical to his, only slower and more calculated.

He was about to take a swig of the potent liquor right from the bottle when she asked if he wasn’t intending to offer her any.

“You’re the last sentient being I would share this with!”

He spewed the words at her with such heat that she could feel the temperature in the room rise. Then he proceeded to take a drink from the bottle as he stared at her. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

His face suddenly melted into a horrific display of guilt. His sigh was nearly a growl as he pulled two glasses from the cabinet and he had to restrain himself from smashing them on the counter. He filled both glasses to the brim and handed her one without even looking at her, as if he could hide his deep frown. Crowley was afraid if he looked at her, he might be further humiliated due to the crushing guilt in his soul. How could hording a drink have such a capacity to destroy him? Or was it just the drink?

He downed his entire glass in one long gulp and then refilled it. He was going to offer her more, but she had only sipped hers. Setting the bottle on the counter, he decided to slow down lest he consume the remainder of its contents by himself even though he had planned on doing just that earlier. His plans were to be drunk alone, not in the presence of certain company piling on more guilt than he already carried around.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here, Medusa?” He finally managed to ask her, after downing more of the liquor.

“Oh, how sweet, you remembered my name,” she said in a sweet voice that wasn’t very sweet at all.

“How could I forget?” He groaned as he tried to stifle the memories with another dose of alcohol.

“Well, you seem to have forgotten all about me,” she said, her piercing eyes peering over the rim of her glass as if they could puncture right through his soul.

He swallowed the last of the liquid in his second glass, and looked away from her, shaking his head.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, not offering anything further.

She shrugged and set her glass on the counter.

“Well, anyway,” she began with a sigh, “I need your help.”

Crowley could feel something in the pit of his stomach sink even lower; if she needed his help, it couldn’t be good. It likely meant she wanted his help doing things that were doubtlessly going to be things that he didn’t like doing. He knew what she was capable of, and he knew what he was capable of, and he didn’t like to think about the terrifying potential they both possessed. He was perfectly content being just enough of an incompetent demon that he could while away his immortality on earth enjoying finer human luxuries.

Medusa could tell by the look on his face as he stared into his empty glass that he neither wanted to agree to help her nor refuse to help her. She knew he was a powerful demon with a giant, soft heart who would never admit to being full of nice and compassionate feelings. He was always under pressure to maintain his reputation among his peers and lord. She didn’t want to ask him at all, but there was no one else.

“Isn’t there some god you’ve turned to stone standing around a bed of overgrown weeds being eaten away by the elements that you could just revive?” Crowley asked, squinting at her.

“It’s kind of difficult to revive the pieces of someone,” she said.

Crowley’s squint turned into disgust at the thought, and he shuddered.

“Anyway, even if there were one, they haven’t so much as walked around let alone swung a sword in thousands of years. I don’t think they’re going to be much use to me.”

He was still squinting as he tilted his head to the side and nodded at the practical possibility of her theory. He knew it was only wishful thinking when he asked, but he’d still clung to the tiny bit of hope that was quickly evaporating.

“Look, all I need you to do is stand guard while I get some rest. Someone is after me again, and I’ve been running for days. I’m running out of energy and you know I’m vulnerable when I sleep,” she told him.

His laugh was humorless. “Somehow I don’t think this involves just babysitting a sleeping monster.”

“Maybe they won’t show up just yet,” she offered hopefully.

He snorted. “Like I have that kind of luck.”

o o o

“Shall we take the Bentley?” Crowley asked, eager for the comfort of his own vehicle.

“Yeah, no,” said Medusa, looking at him through the large, dark sunglasses she had put on before stepping outside. “As much as I love Queen, that is not the proper mood music.”

Crowley’s heart sank and he knew he couldn’t argue because, regardless of how superior his Bentley was and no matter what he tried, he couldn’t fix the music. He could have protested, but in truth he _was_ just the slightest bit curious about the Pagani. He did give the Bentley a cursory rueful glance before he clambered into the luxurious interior of her car. The leather seat felt like chocolate melting around him and Crowley thought for a millisecond he might be able to get to get used to the feel. Medusa fired up the engine and Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” immediately flooded their ears. It wasn’t what Crowley usually listened to, but it also wasn’t his car. Nevertheless, his foot started tapping the floor of its own accord to the beat of the music. They sped off, leaving the Bentley parked in the middle of the road next to his usual, now-vacated spot.

They would’ve stayed at Crowley’s apartment while Medusa slept, but he didn’t want to run the risk of his house being discovered or destroyed. He didn’t say it out loud, but he was also concerned about his neighbors in case danger followed Medusa; he couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to them because of him. She said she was staying in a giant warehouse by herself, and that seemed like the safer option.

What she hadn’t mentioned was that it was a warehouse containing a nightclub underneath her apartment. At seven in the evening, it was already nearing full capacity with a line outside. Any other night and Crowley might have been keen to join them for drunken dancing but tonight he was on edge, and his anxiety was magnified when his senses were overwhelmed by too many sources of evil lurking in the huge crowd. How was he going to be able to sense danger when it could be so easily camouflaged? He groaned as he followed Medusa up the stairs. She seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be gone not too long after midnight. It’s not one of those all-night places,” she told him, glancing down at him over her shoulder.

“And what if your hunter doesn’t want to wait until after midnight?” snarled Crowley.

“I don’t think they’re desperate enough to draw that much attention to themselves yet.”

The sound of the music below was muffled when they reached the top floor, although they could still feel the vibrations through the floor. Medusa’s apartment may have been in a non-descript warehouse, but the interior decorating looked like it had been designed for a queen. It made Crowley’s apartment seem spartan by comparison. He didn’t think it was Medusa’s usual style, but she’d been in a hurry, so it was probably already furnished, and it was obviously suitable enough for her tastes. He hoped it was insured.

As he sat on her sofa, a gigantic albino snake slithered along the top of the backrest behind him. Crowley almost had a look of fondness as he watched it. He touched it, letting it slide underneath his fingers as it slipped down into the space next to him. It wrapped itself into a large coil beside him and rested its huge head on his knee. The big eyes seemed to wink at him while waving its forked tongue at him. He caressed the top of its scaly head.

“That’s Pearl,” Medusa told him. “You keep petting her like that and she’ll be making matrimonial plans for you.”

“Oh, yes?” Crowley said softly, raising his left eyebrow as he continued to stroke the snake’s head gently, undeterred by the warning. Then he tilted his head at Medusa’s pet and asked her, “Are you a lonely, single girl, Pearl?”

“She immediately falls in love with anyone who pets her,” Medusa answered for Pearl.

Crowley smiled at Pearl and Pearl winked back at him.

Then Crowley turned his attention back to Medusa with a serious expression and asked, “So who’s after you this time?”

Medusa shrugged. “All I know is that she is immensely powerful. She didn’t exactly provide any explanation before attacking me. Good thing the place was deserted when she showed up so no one got hurt. I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the building. I only just managed to get away. London was the only place I could think of to run.”

With a furrowed brow, he asked, “Where have you been anyway?”

“In Ghana, teaching Philosophy,” she replied.

“Oh, that’s irony for you,” Crowley said snarkily. “What’s the title of that class? Ethics of Ruthlessly Turning People to Stone for No Reason?”

She folded her arms and remained silent, giving him a long, hard stare. She didn’t feel obligated to explain herself, not even to him. He just shrugged, not really expecting her to answer.

“Anyway,” she said, “I’m exhausted. I’ve got to sleep. So, if you don’t have any other questions…?”

Frowning, he shook his head to indicate that he didn’t. He did have questions, but he could see the deep circles under her eyes, and he could practically feel the fatigue dripping off her. As she walked past him to her large bed, Medusa’s mercury-like jumpsuit transformed itself into a long, silver nightgown and the boots disappeared, exposing her bare feet with the long toes and painted nails. Pearl raised her head up, looking over the back of the couch at Medusa, and glanced back at Crowley as if she weren’t sure whether she should follow Medusa or stay with Crowley. Seeing Medusa climb underneath the covers, she seemed to content to stay where she was, and laid her head back down on Crowley’s knee.

The demon amused himself and Pearl for a while by flashing his own forked tongue at her, but he got bored with that and snapped his fingers to make a book appear in his hand. It was a fantasy adventure by some English author named Neil that Crowley was halfway through so far. The pages unfurled by themselves to where he’d left off. He didn’t usually read books, but his best friend Aziraphale had carried on and on about it and it made Crowley feel slightly jealous, so he decided to read it, too. He had a hard time maintaining his attention, but since there was nothing else for him to do while he guarded the sleeping monster, he figured it was a good time to try finishing the story.

As he neared the last few pages of the book (possibly having skimmed over entire pages to get there), he realized the music below had gone silent. He was feeling rather parched and he was quite sure there was an assortment of drinks shelved at the bar in the nightclub that had his name all over them. However, he found himself in a predicament. While he’d been occupied with reading, Pearl had stretched herself across him and fallen asleep, her full weight coiled up in his lap with her head resting on his chest. Crowley wasn’t entirely certain, but he had a vague sense of there being a law across the world and all celestial planes that one was forbidden from moving a sleeping pet from one’s lap no matter the reason for needing or wanting to get up. Ordinarily, he took laws to be mere suggestions, but the sight of his new sleeping friend proved a bit more challenging. He stroked her head and whispered to her.

“Why don’t you go take a nap with Medusa for a while?”

Pearl sleepily opened her pale eyes and lazily slid over his shoulder, down the back of the sofa, and underneath the bed covers where she curled up next to her mistress. He watched her until she was settled, and then glanced around the apartment and out the window. Satisfied that the two women of the house were safe for the moment, he left the book on the sofa and slinked his long, lean legs downstairs in search of the bar.

The nightclub was dark inside except for the glow of strategically placed neon lights. The floor had already been swept and the counter wiped down, leaving a faint trace of cleaning chemical behind. Crowley sauntered behind the bar counter as if he owned the place and perused the numerous options available to him. He picked up a bottle and ran his thumb over the label. Just as he had suspected, a word in fiery letters with an ancient font revealed itself to him: _Crowley_. He smiled to himself as he popped the cork off.

As he took a drink right from the bottle, he got a whiff of _something else_. Confused, he turned around to see a tall, pale, and blonde woman with an athletic frame staring back at him. Whereas Medusa draped herself in liquid silver, this woman was covered in gold. She had on a shiny sleeveless gold crop top exposing her arms and part of her abdominals, both of which were nothing but muscle. The matching slim fit trousers were stretched against the muscles in her legs, and her neck and wrists were ringed with large, heavy gold adornments. There was a large, gold headband curved across the top of her head, holding her hair back. She was not smiling, and she made Crowley extraordinarily uncomfortable.

“Sorry, I thought everyone had left,” he said to her.

“Not everyone,” she said, smirking. He noticed her eyes were like almost like gold too, a shade of fawn.

He sniffed and began to head back toward the apartment.

“Well,” he said as he walked away, “Help yourself to anything at the bar. It’s not mine.”

She just watched him leaving. He didn’t like the _smell_ of her. When he reached the top of the stairs, he looked back, and she was standing at the bottom step, staring back at him with those eerie pale eyes. He was getting an awfully bad feeling, the kind of bad he didn’t like.

_Just stand guard, she’d said._

The problem with being a guard was the inherent implication that danger was a high probability and could appear at any time. Crowley regretted the sin he had committed that had led to him being nominated for this job. All he’d wanted was a quiet evening being drunk at home.

He ran into the apartment and closed the door, as if it would keep her out. He took another drink of the alcohol to calm his nerves and then the threw the bottle aside. The crash it made on the floor made Pearl twitch but neither she nor Medusa awoke. He shook his hands out in front of him and twisted his neck, making it pop and crack.

“OK, I’m ready for you,” he said quietly to no one. “Try me.”

The doorknob turned and the door swung open slowly. No point in wasting energy unnecessarily smashing things. The same blonde woman was standing in the doorway, eyeing him—taking stock of him.

“Bit rude to enter without even knocking first,” he told her.

That smirk again.

“What kind of puny god are you supposed to be?” she inquired.

Crowley’s jaw dropped open. He didn’t know if he was more insulted by the word “puny,” or the word “god.” He decided he was equally insulted by both terms. Things weren’t going well at all.

“I’ll have you know I’m neither,” he advised her, his voice rising a tad higher than he’d intended.

She didn’t look convinced, so he pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them into the same pile where the broken bottle lay. He flashed his yellow at her and curled his lips back with a low growl that he hoped sounded threatening.

Her laugh sounded almost hysterical, and he thought that was offensive too. He had a mind to set her on fire just for that laugh. But he didn’t have time to think more about that because she touched the headband and something on it moved. He watched a large gold shield drop down over her face, all the way past her chin, curving around the sides toward her ears. It was so shiny that he could see his reflection in it. As she lifted her leg to step into the apartment, her toes grew longer through her high heel sandals into an enormous claw, and the second leg followed in the same manner. Armor-like golden scales rippled up her calves over her knees. As she arched her shoulder blades, a pair of magnificent reddish blonde feathered wings unfolded behind her.

_Oh Hell_ , thought Crowley. _A harpy_. He hadn’t seen one of her kind in centuries. He had questions, but he didn’t think she was in the mood for discourse.

She tutted as she stepped further into the room, her talons scraping the wooden floor.

“Sleeping beauty and her puny god,” she laughed hysterically again behind the face shield.

Now she was just doing it on purpose. Crowley turned up one his palms and rubbed his fingers together. A little spark sprang forth between his fingertips and in a matter of seconds he’d formed a large fireball in his hand. But before he could hurl it at her, the harpy threw a long gold whip at him. It wrapped around his wrist, knocking the ball of fire out his hand. He watched it roll across the floor toward her.

“Shit!” Crowley exclaimed.

The harpy flapped her wings, lifting herself off the floor. She picked up the fireball with one of her claws and flung it aside. It smashed through the large windowpane and landed on the rooftop of an adjacent building, where it immediately erupted into much larger flames as Crowley stared in horror. He hoped the building was empty. Angered, Crowley grabbed the gold whip and growled as his hands began to burn, sending a wave of heat over the strange material. It took more effort than he’d anticipated, but the whip disintegrated into ashes on the floor.

The smashed window had roused Pearl, although Medusa’s sleep was so deep, she did not stir. Pearl raised her head and saw the fight ensuing between Crowley and an intruder. She raced over to him, circled around him with her long white body, and reared her head up in front of him facing the winged beast, opening her mouth wide, baring her fangs with a terrible hiss. The harpy laughed again.

“No, Pearl,” Crowley said, alarmed. “Get back!”

He looked back at Medusa and wished she would wake up. Hand to hand combat wasn’t really his forte. He was more accustomed to using intimidation tactics and performing other unruly deeds that didn’t require him to actually be present. But she was still fast asleep.

Crowley almost considered summoning a couple of more ruthless demons from Below, but he shuddered to think about what _else_ that would bring forth. Plus, he really didn’t want to draw attention to himself. They might start asking questions he didn’t want to answer. He liked it much better when they just left him alone, but of course that meant he was on his own. Usually, that wasn’t an issue.

The harpy stuck a taunting claw out at Pearl, laughing with that terrible noise, and Pearl snapped at her, just missing her legs. The harpy laughed again, but Pearl wasn’t amused. She curled her lower body up like a spring and sprang out at the beast, quickly twisting around her, crushing her arms against her waist. Crowley was terrified, but he didn’t hesitate. He ran over to the bed and picked up the sleeping Medusa, then ran to the window, kicking out more of the glass with his snakeskin boots. He stepped out onto the sill and jumped off. A moment later, he rose back up, his massive, wide black wings stretched out and batting against the night’s air.

The fiercely loyal Pearl, with her fangs bared, had the harpy briefly immobilized, but Crowley watched in horror as he saw the beast clutch Pearl’s body in its massive claws. Crowley’s eyes felt stained with a flood of crimson. He wanted to do something to help Pearl, but there was no time. He heard the harpy’s terrible wail as he flew off with demonic speed, not looking back.

o o o

_There was no time._

If he kept telling himself that, he might start to believe it, thought Crowley as he sat in a grassy field next to the sleeping Medusa. He didn’t know how he was going to tell Medusa when she woke up. Pearl was gone and he felt like it was all his fault. Maybe Pearl wasn’t the only one who easily fell in love. They’d only just met and now he’d probably never see her again. He wondered if she was in Heaven. Surely, she was an angel. Crowley was never going to see her up there, not in all eternity.

Crowley’s mobile phone chimed. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the caller id, and answered right away.

“Hello, angel,” he said.

“Hi! Hello!” The angel greeted him cheerfully. “I rang you at home but only got your answer machine. Are you out causing trouble?”

Crowley was silent for a moment. Did he _know_?

“I am,” Crowley told him, dead serious.

“Oh, that’s good,” Aziraphale said, still cheerful, and then corrected himself: “No, that’s bad! What kind of trouble are you causing? No, never mind, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

Aziraphale was so flustered, he almost forgot why he was calling and started to hang up without saying anything else. He collected himself as quickly as he could and continued talking.

“I’ve been baking,” he announced, “so I thought you might like to come over to the book shop tomorrow. I’ve got Red Devil’s Food Cake. Oh, there’s all kinds, too many to mention. And there’s an extra special of bottle of something just delivered today that I think you would especially like.”

Crowley sobbed into the phone in response, unable to say anything. Aziraphale’s heart broke at the sound of hearing his best friend so upset. The trouble Crowley was up to must be terribly bad if he was crying into the phone over an offering of cake and drink. Aziraphale was going to have to know what the trouble was after all.

“Dear, what ever is the matter?” Aziraphale asked his friend.

“I’m useless,” Crowley sobbed.

“Nonsense,” Aziraphale countered. “Just tell me what’s bothering you.”

Starting from the beginning with the Pagani parked in his spot, Crowley spilled out all the sordid details. When he got to the part about Pearl, he started sobbing again, because that’s what he was especially upset about. He felt bad because he didn’t want to involve his friend, but he felt good, too, because he had someone to talk to while he sat there in the grass under the night sky.

Aziraphale was always nice and always tried to see the good in everything, but when he heard how upset his friend was, and what happened to a perfectly sweet pet, he started to feel not very nice at all. In fact, he was getting rather angry. He stood up from his chair, pulling the spiraled cord attached to his rotary phone taut, barely able to contain himself.

“Where is this warehouse?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley was too upset to wonder why Aziraphale wanted to know that. He recounted the location in a mechanic voice. He’d stopped sobbing but the tears were still streaming down his face. He tried to wipe them away with his long fingers, but then he remembered those fingers had just been touching Pearl and a new salty river began to flow down his cheeks.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Aziraphale assured his friend. “Come by the shop later anyway, even if you don’t feel up to anything.”

“OK,” Crowley sighed and, not knowing what else to say, he hung up.

He didn’t see how anything was going to be fine for Pearl.

o o o

Crowley felt so depressed that he’d fallen asleep in the grass next to Medusa.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was already high in the sky. As he blinked to adjust to its glare, he noticed Medusa was lying on her side watching him. He rubbed one eye and stared back at her with the other one.

“Weirdly enough,” she said, “I remember going to sleep in a nice, soft, normal bed, not a field of wet grass.”

“Did you get enough sleep?” he asked, ignoring her.

“For now,” she answered. “I take it there were problems?”

“You might have mentioned it was a harpy chasing you,” he said.

Medusa shook her head and focused her turquoise eyes out in the distance.

“She seems like a harpy, but she’s something else too,” she mused.

After some discussion, Crowley and Medusa decided to lay low for the time being. There was not much more they could do today, so they determined that reserving their energy was the priority. Later, they’d go by Aziraphale’s book shop—if anyone would have information about harpies and how to get rid of them, it would be him. They both shifted into their black-bodied reptilian forms, one with a belly of red and the other with a hint of turquoise, and slithered off through the grass. They found a large rock further out in the field with a crevice underneath it and they curled up in it next to each other.

***

Meanwhile, Aziraphale climbed up the stairs adjacent to the empty nightclub to the apartment on top with its front door ajar. When he stepped inside, he immediately had to turn his head away, eyes closed, horrified at the sight on the floor. He touched his gold-patterned bowtie and swallowed. Right. He was just going to have to angel-up and get to work.

As he walked past the sofa, a book lying on the seat caught his eye. He looked at the title and smiled to himself. It made him feel much better about the unpleasant and highly frowned upon miracle he was about to perform.

***

When the sun began to drop in the sky, turning the clouds a fiery orange, Medusa and Crowley stretched out from beneath the rock they were hiding under and resumed their human shapes. Crowley wore his usual black denim and jacket, but Medusa shifted into a shiny silver blazer over a black turtleneck and black jeans. They stepped out on to the pavement next to a road and hailed a black cab that seemed to come from out of nowhere. Crowley gave the somewhat perplexed driver instructions to take them to his friend’s book shop.

Aziraphale was in the process of passive aggressively deterring an unfortunate customer from attempting to actually buy the book she was holding when Crowley and Medusa ambled in through the door. Aziraphale quickly swapped his glaring at the customer for a sweet grin at the sight of his friend and just as quickly swapped that for a less friendly smile at the sight of Medusa. The customer looked up from the book and surveyed the two newcomers and the shop owner over her eyeglasses. She then snapped the book shut and put it back on the shelf, deciding she’d take her money to a different bookstore, and walked out. Aziraphale felt slightly guilty for not telling her to come back anytime, but the truth was that he really didn’t want her to come back any time.

Crowley slunk down in a sofa next to Aziraphale’s desk, refusing his friend’s offer of cake, cocoa, tea, or anything stronger. Aziraphale told Medusa to have a seat and she started to say she was fine standing, not having seen another chair in the room, but when she looked behind her, she discovered there was an armchair after all, so she perched herself on the edge of it. Crowley wondered if his friend might any have books on harpies and Aziraphale said he’d already pulled out a few books on ancient mythology. By a few books, he was referring to a rather tall stack on the floor next to his desk, and one that was already open on the top of his desk next to a cup of perpetually steaming cocoa.

They were each going over a book in the stack (although Crowley was really just reading the captions beneath artist renditions of mythical harpies) when the bell over the door jingled. Aziraphale was about to give his customary glare at the incomer but stopped himself short when he realized that he recognized the woman with long brunette hair and round glasses. Instead of glaring, he said hello and gave her that same friendly smile he’d given her when they first met. In exchange, she gave him the same suspicious look. Crowley looked over his shoulder and gave his best fake smile, too.

“Didn’t expect to see you again, Enema,” Crowley said.

“Anathema,” she corrected.

“I thought it was the same thing,” Crowley muttered, mostly to himself.

Anathema seemed somewhat harried and eager to say something, but she looked over at Medusa and paused. She didn’t recognize her at all and thought maybe she should come back later. Medusa also eyed the American woman with mistrust, but Crowley and his friend seemed to be familiar with her, so she didn’t appear to be a threat just yet. Aziraphale could tell she was in a bit of state, but, then again, that’s how she was the last time they met, so he thought perhaps that was just her normal disposition. Then he realized that Medusa was a stranger to her, and he waved his hand dismissively.

“Don’t mind our friend Medusa here,” Aziraphale said to her.

Anathema was slightly relieved to meet someone else with an unusual name, too, but then she considered the two men in the room and realized that the woman’s name might be the original rather than a tribute. Then she thought that would make sense, considering the information she had come to tell them about. Aziraphale told her to have a seat and just as she was about to ask where, she glanced over and saw another armchair that she was sure hadn’t been there before. Her long skirt billowed up slightly as she flopped into the chair, trying to gather her thoughts and decide where to start.

“Someone started following me around recently,” Anathema told them randomly. “I didn’t like it, so I decided to follow them back.”

“Oh, dear, “Aziraphale said, worriedly.

Anathema nodded, though her mind seemed far away.

“Yes, and I discovered that there are witches, or at least people believed to be witches, have been accosted—and not just in the usual way—and that at least one suspected coven in South America has vanished. But it turns out, it’s not just witches. And I thought about you, so I came to warn you. Good thing you have this book shop, or I’d never have been able to find you.”

The other three waited for her to continue.

“From what I can divine,” Anathema continued, “There is an American scientist working under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense who is obsessed with the idea that he can harness the power of ancient mythological gods and goddesses by resurrecting them through the collection of their DNA and combining it with experimental science. Not just the mythical beings, though. He’s also interested in the powers of witches, shaman, and, I’m presuming, angels…or demons. I’ve heard a rumor that he’s already been successful.”

“The success wouldn’t happen to come in the shape of gold winged woman, would it?” Crowley asked.

Anathema stared at him. “How did you know?”

“Well,” he said, his voice rising unnecessarily high, “You might say we’ve met.”

“So, it’s not just a rumor,” Anathema mused thoughtfully. “If I hadn’t met the two of you, I would’ve thought it was ridiculous nonsense.”

“That explains why a harpy has been chasing and attacking me,” Medusa said. “They want my power.”

Anathema’s eyes widened. _So, she was the original_.

“I see I’m a little late to the party,” said Anathema.

“You have information we lacked, though,” Medusa told her. “We’ve just been sitting here trying to figure out to get rid of the harpy. We didn’t know anything about the rest of it, although I suspected there was some reason behind it.”

“The harpy is probably just the first line of attack,” Crowley said, nodding. “But also the most pressing at the moment.”

“She’s stronger than me,” said Medusa. “It was all I could do to get away from her.”

“Did you try the eye-flashy-stone-petrifying-thing?” Crowley asked as if he just thought of it.

“I’ve never tried it on another woman before, but yes, of course, out of desperation,” Medusa said. “But she has some kind of shield over her face and it almost backfired against me.”

Crowley remembered the gold headband and face shield. “That must be part of the experimental science,” he said.

Anathema had a thought. “What about that flaming sword?” she asked. “It seemed to work pretty good against some rather scary monsters.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows at this idea and looked to Aziraphale questioningly.

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “Bad idea.”

“Do you know of any other kind of flaming swords or magickal weapons we could use then?” Crowley asked.

“Can you just throw a fireball at her?” Aziraphale countered.

“Yeah, I did that, and the building next door went up in flames,” Crowley groaned at the memory.

_That explains all the emergency responders and smoke_ , thought Aziraphale, thinking back to earlier that morning. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of any other weapon, at least one easily and readily accessible, that was as powerful as the flaming sword.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to loan you the sword…Just think if Heaven got wind of this!” Aziraphale exclaimed.

“But you wouldn’t be loaning _me_ the sword,” Crowley said, gesturing to Medusa. “You’d be loaning it to Medusa, and she’s a goddess. Surely that’s OK.”

Aziraphale gave him a nervous smile. He wasn’t so sure the Archangel Gabriel and his cohorts would see things quite the same way.

“I’ve always wondered why God gave you a flaming sword. Isn’t fire usually something in Satan’s department? How did Heaven come across a flaming sword and then give it to an angel?” Medusa said, ignoring both of them.

Aziraphale tittered, lifting his palms, and shrugging. “It’s ineffable, I’m sure.”

Both Medusa and Crowley knew there was no point in asking more questions once the ineffable was mentioned, although neither of them was sure whether Aziraphale didn’t want to tell them the truth or really didn’t know the truth.

“Anyway,” continued Medusa, “you don’t have to actually loan it to either of us. You could just tell us where it is or where it might be.”

Aziraphale considered that for a moment or three.

“Well, I suppose that would be alright,” he said reluctantly. “It _is_ currently on loan to a museum after all. Heaven knows what could happen to it in there, even though the security is supposed to be top-notch.”

“Your flaming sword is in a _museum_?” Crowley asked incredulously.

Aziraphale just shrugged. Instead of telling them which museum, he gave them a flyer with the name and location of the museum, which also featured a large photograph of the aforementioned artifact. Crowley stared at him even more incredulously. Medusa smiled, pleased with all of it.

“This is going to be cake,” Medusa said.

“Please don’t blaspheme cake,” Aziraphale said wearily.

Anathema could see they were forming a battle plan, one that she didn’t want to be part of. Her work here was done, she decided. She got up and dusted invisible lint off her skirt.

“Well, it sounds like the three of you know what to do. I’m going to warn others and continue trying to gather information,” Anathema informed them.

“I’m going to have some more cocoa and tempt my neighbor at _Intimate Books_ to some of my devilishly good cake,” Aziraphale said cheerfully.

o o o

To avoid any unnecessary attention, they waited until later in the night when the museum would be closed. Crowley touched the lock on the museum door with his finger and with a little fiery _zap_ , the mechanism released itself, and he pushed the door open, allowing Medusa to go in first. They waltzed past a skinny, elderly security guard whose attention was absorbed by a British quiz show called “ _Ask Becks!_ ” streaming on his tablet and didn’t hear or see them come in nor did he notice them on the security video monitors as they moved further inside. Not that they were deterred by his presence, but Medusa and Crowley glanced at him as they walked by then exchanged shrugs when he failed to stop them.

“Top-notch security,” Crowley commented flatly, and Medusa agreed with him sardonically.

They checked the museum’s directory to find out where they believed the flaming sword was being displayed, and then wasted some time going to the exact wrong section of the museum, distracted by the collection’s aesthetics. After realizing they weren’t finding the sword, they returned to the directory, reoriented themselves, went in the wrong direction again, got lost, blamed each other for not reading the map correctly, and finally ended up in the section they were originally looking for purely by accident.

The flaming sword, which was not presently flaming, was situated in a glass case on a sturdy, clear, acrylic stand. Crowley snapped his fingers and the glass vanished. Conveniently, the sword was also displayed with a sword holster and belt which, despite not originating from the same era as the sword itself, turned out to fit the sword perfectly. Medusa pulled out the belt and holster first and buckled them around her slender waist. Then she lifted the sword, surprised by how lightweight it was. As soon as she did that, an alarm went off. Taking the deafening sound as their cue to vacate the museum and exited through the nearby emergency doors, setting off the fire alarms. At the security desk, the very annoyed guard took off his hearing aids before he decided to investigate because he wasn’t _that_ deaf and the noise from the pair of alarms was destroying the remainder of his hearing.

Neither Crowley nor Medusa hurried toward her Pagani parked on the street outside. Two young men each holding stinking fish and chips were oohing and aahing over the expensive car, touching the shining silver with their greasy hands and trying to see inside the dark windows. Crowley heard Medusa’s hair start to hiss and before he could stop her, she lifted up her dark sunglasses and whistled out to the boys. Only one of them looked up at her and immediately turned to stone, one hand in front of him with a serving of stone fish and chips.

“Oh, HELL,” Crowley moaned. “What have you done?”

Medusa dropped her sunglasses back over her eyes as she shrugged at Crowley like she was baffled as to why he was upset.

“You just petrified that guy for no reason! He’s literally stone!” Crowley exclaimed. “Was that really necessary? You could’ve just been a little intimidating and ran them off.”

“They’re smearing stinking fish grease all over my paint,” she said as if that were a proper excuse to turn a man to stone.

The other boy looked over at the two tall and lean, menacing figures walking toward him. He stumbled backwards and knocked his petrified friend to the ground causing the stone to smash into numerous pieces on the pavement. He gaped for only a millisecond before dropping his food and high tailing it away from the inexplicable sight.

Crowley held his hands out toward the broken pieces of the young man, gaping at Medusa, unable to form words.

“Oops,” she said, pushing some of the pieces away from her car as she chirped it unlocked.

Crowley was still sitting in shock with revulsion as Medusa reasoned that trying to find the harpy wasn’t necessary because she seemed to have no trouble finding them. As she fired up the engine, Medusa said that she wanted to go back to the warehouse. Crowley really didn’t want to go back to the warehouse because he didn’t want to see the disaster waiting, but he also didn’t want to tell her why he didn’t want to go back there. While he debated the issue back and forth in his mind, Medusa made up her own mind and sped toward her apartment. Before he could come to a conclusion about what to say, she was parking at the curb in front of the warehouse of horrors.

As Medusa turned the knob on her front door, Crowley gulped and braced himself for her fury. Much to his surprise, Medusa walked inside and asked Pearl if she had missed her. Crowley was standing adjacent to the door frame, and he leaned over and peered into the apartment. He was even more shocked to see that not only was Pearl very much alive and well, the window looked new, and there was no broken glass on the floor. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked inside as if he were normal.

“I thought you said there were problems,” Medusa said, looking confused. “It doesn’t look like anything happened here. Well, except for the building in ashes next door.”

Crowley was almost in tears as he said, “It’s a miracle.”

“Strange, but the window looks brand new,” Medusa wondered out loud.

Worried that Pearl might get in the middle of things again, Crowley asked if there was somewhere she could be kept safe out of the way. He didn’t want to tell her why. Medusa wasn’t too keen on the idea since she liked to let her pet have free roam but agreed that it was probably safer to put her in the enormous glass aquarium at the back of the room. Pearl fussed quite a bit about having to go inside it, but Crowley shushed her as he laid her on a bed of rocks.

He wagged his finger at Pearl and whispered, “You are absolutely _not_ allowed to die again!”

Medusa was busy waving the sword around, its flame spreading across the blade and then dying out again over and over again. Crowley kept checking outside through the window and sniffing the air, trying to pick up the harpy’s strange scent. It was faint, but it was out there. He was sure she would show up again before too long.

He was right, too. Two hours hadn’t quite passed by when he noticed the sickly-sweet scent get stronger. Medusa saw him stiffen and knew he could tell she was near. They looked toward the front door, expecting her to walk in any moment, but then heard a noise against the window. Slowly, they turned their heads to look outside and there she was batting her golden red wings against the windowpane. She didn’t have the face shield down just yet, and she looked legitimately pissed off. Things weren’t going well again, Crowley thought.

The golden hued harpy let out a terrifying and earsplitting wail that burst the brand-new glass in the window and all the glass surrounding it. The sound of it made Crowley and Medusa momentarily duck down as if they could shield themselves from the noise by getting lower to the ground. Collecting herself quickly, Medusa shifted her legs into the tail of an enormous half snake, the upper half of her female form raised up in the air. Her stylish clothes morphed into a hardier silver armor across the top half of her, and her long dreads came alive, squirming from the roots to the ends that hissed with an assortment of fanged mouths. She held the sword out at the ready, its flame on full blast. Crowley just tried to remain standing.

The harpy stepped through the space where the glass had once been, her giant claws once again scraping the floor. She put her the face shield down and slapped out two golden whips from each of her hands, one of which she tried to slash Crowley with. He reared back, shifting his own legs into a snake tail to catch his balance, and slithered away backwards quickly. Snakes of every kind seemed to slide down from Medusa’s hair and arms on to the floor and raced toward the harpy. Some of them were crushed and stabbed by the talons in the beast’s claws while others made it up her legs, trying to inject her with their venom. Instead, they got their fangs caught in the golden armor and could neither free themselves nor bite through to her skin underneath.

Medusa sent out another wave of her army of snakes while Crowley was busy trying to grab the golden whips so he could burn them up like he did before. This time the harpy let out another wail from behind her mask and the soundwaves sent the small snakes on the floor reeling backwards. Crowley decided to try the fireball trick once again, but just as before, the winged woman snapped her whip at his wrists and knocked the fireball out of his hand before he could throw it.

“Shit!” he exclaimed with a feeling of déjà vu as he watched the flaming ball roll across the floor.

_That was twice!_

Now he was genuinely mad.

Just as before, the harpy picked up the fireball and threw it outside where it hit yet another building and set its roof on fire.

He was going to send this half woman straight to Hell just for embarrassing him.

But before he could do that, the harpy snapped the whip in her other hand at Medusa’s hand and knocked the sword out of her hand sending Medusa scrambling after it. The harpy snapped it again and it slashed across Medusa’s shoulder, went straight through the armor and left a huge gash. Medusa fell over from the assault and the harpy whipped the sword even further out of her reach.

Crowley gave up on trying to throw balls of fire. Instead he drew a deep breath from the deepest depths of his lungs and when he breathed out again, he sent a spray of flames out of his mouth straight at the harpy. The flames made her armor spark and roasted the snakes tangled up in it. The feathers in her right wing ignited and the fire ate the entire span in a matter of seconds as the harpy wailed out in pain, stumbling from the shock. She tried to throw the length of her right-hand whip at him but this time he caught the end of it in his hands without so much as incurring a welt and he grinned madly at her. Instead of turning the material to ashes again, he pulled on it, dragging her toward him, her claws drawing huge gouges in the wood floor. She slapped out her left-hand whip at him, but he got that one and tugged harder on both strands like a pair of reigns. The harpy was unable to let go of them because they were attached to the large bracelets on her wrists that were cutting into her skin. She wailed as he laughed manically and dragged her closer.

Medusa grabbed the flaming sword while the harpy was preoccupied, and pushed herself up on her long, black tail, circling around behind the harpy. She grasped the shaft with both of her hands and raised it up over her head before ramming it between the harpy’s shoulder blades and straight into the creature’s heart. The harpy gave a blood-curdling wail and fell forward. Even though the flame in the sword was already heating up the center of the harpy’s chest, Crowley drew another deep breath and breathed out another steady stream of hellfire directly at her until she burst into a black cloud of ash. The sword, its flame burnt out, fell to the ground.

As Crowley tossed what was left of the two golden whips out of the broken windows, they disappeared into thin air. He blew the black ashes on the floor out the window as well and the wind picked them up and carried them away. Another collection of emergency responders with sirens blaring and lights flashing were responding to the burning building. Medusa had shifted back to her human shape and was examining the gash on her bicep. Crowley touched it and the wound healed up as if it had never existed. She smiled at him.

“Don’t ever tell anyone I did that,” Crowley said.

There was a knock at the front door, and Crowley walked over and flung it open, ready for another round of battle. He was surprised to find Aziraphale standing in the hallway with a tall plaid thermos and a lidded container that no doubt held an assortment of his baked goods. His platinum-blond friend smiled cheerfully at him, forcing the corner of Crowley’s lips into an upwards curl.

Aziraphale walked inside and started to say that he thought they might get hungry while waiting for the harpy, but he took one look at the shattered apartment and his smile faded as he tutted.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” he groaned, annoyed by the fact that the place was destroyed again after he’d just worked a miracle to put it back together.

Medusa walked over and took the container of food and thermos out of Aziraphale’s hands. She was suddenly famished. Crowley laughed at him, but then remembered something else. He looked at Pearl and then looked at Aziraphale knowingly.

“Thanks,” he said.

Aziraphale smiled brightly and put his palms out. “Don’t mention it,” he said, and added nervously, “Really, don’t mention it all.”

o o o

Dawn was breaking as Medusa, Crowley and Aziraphale walked out of the warehouse. The fire trucks were gone, and the street was deserted. Crowley and Medusa put on sunglasses at the same time, covering their reptilian eyes while Aziraphale admired the pinks and purples in the smoky haze that stretched out across the London sky.

“Shall we drop you off at the bookshop?” Crowley asked Aziraphale.

“Oh, that would be lovely,” his friend replied.

A third seat miraculously appeared in the back of Medusa’s two-person Pagani Huayra and Crowley tilted the front passenger seat forward so that Aziraphale could climb into the new back row. Medusa wasn’t the least surprised by the alterations to her vehicle, and she certainly had no complaints about the new car smell that filled her nostrils. It wouldn’t last, but she might as well enjoy it while she could. As soon as Crowley slid into his seat and closed the door, she pressed the accelerator and the car zipped off into traffic like a jet. Crowley immediately turned on the stereo system as if he were driving his own Bentley and the rapper Diam’s called out through the speakers with a refrain from one of her songs:

_Jeune demoiselle recherche un mec mortel_

_Un mec qui pourra me donner des ailes_

_Un mec qui rêve de famille et de toucher le ciel!_

“Oh. Be-bop,” said Aziraphale happily.

Medusa and Crowley exchanged a shared glance of the most appalled expression. Crowley looked over his shoulder at Aziraphale, ready to chastise him about the proper terms of music genres, but when he saw the sweet grin on his friend’s face, all he could do was grin back like the smitten demon that he was. As he shifted back in his seat, he was still grinning when he caught Medusa staring back at him with her eyebrows raised and her mouth agape. His grin melted down the sides of his chin in embarrassment as he turned his gaze toward her windshield and focused on something far, far away in the distance.


End file.
